For the past 19 years, I have spent my summers on the baseball diamond umpiring. I have umpired everything from little league to college. I have attended the Harry Wendelstedt umpire school twice. This blog will be a combination of stories and lessons I have learned along the way.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Learn the Rules

I feel like I have a post like this every year so I'm sorry if I have said all of this before but putting it out here keeps me from saying something during a game.

Last night, I had two plays that made me want to make this post.

The first was a foul tip (directly from the bat to the catchers glove or hand and was caught) when a runner was stealing. The catcher held onto the ball and automatically the defensive coaches started yelling that it was a foul ball. Now, if this was a 9 year olds game, that would have been one thing but this was a 13 year old game. Even if a coach never took the time to read the rule book, you would think that at some point in the 4 or 5 years of coaching he would have seen a foul tip before. They didn't put up too much of a fight but the fact that they argued the call was insane to me.

The second didn't bother me but as a coach, he ran his kids out of an inning. Runner on 1st, no outs. Strike three is dropped by the catcher. The runner started going back to the bag but the coach was screaming at him to run. I was yelling "Batted is out, first base is occupied, BATTER IS OUT!!!" But nobody paid any attention to me. The kid was thrown out at 2nd. The kicker was, it was a 1 run game in the last inning. The next kid hit a double that would have tied the game. They ended up stranding him at 3rd.

I understand that coaches and players are not going to spend as much time learning the rule book as the umpires do. I wouldn't expect it. But if you are going to coach the game, don't you think it would help to have an above average understand of the rules of the game? To any coach that reads this, I challenge you to read the rule book, to ask questions of the umpire in between innings. Learn the rules. It will keep you from arguing things you shouldn't argue and it will make you a better coach. The best coaches are the ones that not only understand how to teach the game, they also know the game.

I know not just saying all of this to vent. I honestly believe that if coaches took just a little more time to learn the rules of the game, things would improve in all aspects of the game of them. Ok, time to get off my soap box. Only an hour and fifteen minutes until I head to the fields. PLAY BALL!!!

1 comment:

I read another article on another umpire's blog on the foul tip example that I thought was excellent. Here is the link: http://rulebookguru.blogspot.ca/2010/10/when-is-foul-tip-not-foul-tip.htmlI agree that coaches should learn more of the rules as it will help make their teams better and more importantly our jobs easier!